THE DEATH SHIP: A STRANGE STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9139, 22 August 1888, Page 3

THE DEATH SHIP: A STRANGE STORY.

[NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.]

an account OF a CRUISE in THE FLYING DUTCH MAN, COLLECTED FROM THE PAPERS OF THE LATE MR. GEOFFREY KENTON, OF POPLAR, MASTER MARINER

BY W. CLARKE RUSSELL,

Author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor,

"The Golden Hope," Ac., &c.

(All Rights Reserved. 1

CHAPTER XXVI. WE WATCH THE SHIP APPROACH US. Imogens and I stood in silence for some moments hand in hand ; then finding Van Vogelaar furtively watching us, I quitted her side ; at the same moment Vanderdecken came on deck.

Leaning against the rail of the bulwarks as high as my shoulder-blades, 1 quietly waited for what was to come, yet with a mind lively with curiosity and expectations. What would Vanderdecken do ? What colours would the stranger show? How would she behave? What part might 1 have to take in whatever was to happen ? To be sure the stranger would not be up with us for some while yet, but since breakfast the breeze had slightly freshened, and by the rapid enlargement of those shining heights astern, you knew that the wind had but to gather a little more weight to swiftly swirl yonder nimble craft up to within musket-shot of this cumbrous, ancient fabric. I looked over the rail, watching the sickly - coloured side slipping sluggishly through the liquid transparent blue, marbled sometimes by veins and patches of i foam, flung with a sullen indifference of ' energy from the hewing cut-water, on the top of which there projected a great beak, where yet lingered the remains of a figurehead that I had some time before made out •to represent an Hercules, frowning down upon the sea with uplifted arms, as though in the act of smiting with a club. It was easy to guess that this ship had kept the seas for some months since careening, by observing the shell-fish below her waterline, and the strings of black and green weed she lifted with every roll. But, uncouth as was the fabric, gaunt as her aged furniture made her decks appear, inconvenient and ugly as was her rig, exhibiting a hundred signs of the primitiveness in naval construction of the age to which she belonged, yet, when I lifted my eyes from ! the water to survey her, 'twas not without a sentiment of veneration beyond the power of tho horror the supernaturalism of her crew raised in me to correct. For was it not by such ships as this that the great and opulent islands and continents of the world had been discovered and laid open as theatres for prosperity to act dazzling parts in? Was it not with such ships as this that battles were fought, the courage, audacity, skill, and tierce determination exhibited which many latter conflicts may, indeed, parallel, but never in one single instance surpass ? Was it not by such ships as this that the great Protector raised the name of Britain to such a height as exceeds all we read of in the history of ancient and modern nations ? What braver admirals, more skilful soldiers, more valiant captains, stouter-hearted mariners, have flourished than those whose cannon flamed in thunder from the sides of such ships as this ? The time pissed ; at the hour of eleven or thereabouts the hull of the ship astern was visible upon the water-line. The breeze had freshened, and the long heave of the swell left by the gale was whipped into wrinkles, which melted into a creamy sparkling as they ran. Under the sun, upon our starboard bow, the ocean was kindled into glory ; through the trembling splendour the blue" of the sea surged up in fluctuating veins, and the conflict of the sapphire dye welling up into the liquid dazzle, where it showed an instant, ere being overwhelmed by the blaze on the water, was a spectacle of beauty worthy of life-long remembrance. Elsewhere, the crisped plain of the ocean stretched darker than the Heavens, under which were many clouds, moving with full white bosoms like the sails of ships, carrying tinted shillings resembling wind-galls, or fragments of solar rainbows, upon their shoulders or skirts, as they happened to offer them to the sun.

By this time you felt the stirring of curiosity throughout the ship. V* liatever jobs the crew had been put to they now neglected, that they might hang over the sides or stand upon the rail to watch and study the ship astern of us. Many had an avidity in their stare that could not have been matched by the looks of faminestricken creatures. Whether they were visited by some dim sense or perception of their frightful lot and yearned, out of this weak emotion, for the ship in pursuit, albeit they might not have been able to make their wishes intelligible to their own understandings, God knoweth. 'Twas moving to see them ; one with the sharp of his hand to his forehead, another fixedly gazing out of a tangle of grey hair, a third showing fat and ghastly to the sunlight, a fourth with black eyes charged with the coloured patches of blindness, straining his imperfect gtfze under a bald brow, corrugated into lines as hard as iron. Vanderdecken had left. Imogene and stood on the weather quarter with the mate. The girl being alone, I walked aft to her and said in English, feigning to speak of the weather by looking aloft as I spoke, "I have held aloof long enough, I think. He will not object if I join you now !" «' No — his head is full of that ship yonder," she replied. " For my part, lam as weary of sitting as you must be of stand ing. Let us walk a little. He has never objected to our conversing. Why should he do so now ?" So saying she rose. Her sheer weariness of being alone, or of talking to Vanderdecken, was too much for her policy of caution. We fell to quietly pacing the poop deck to leeward, and with a most keen and exquisite delight I could taste in her manner the gladness our being together filled her with, and foresee the spirit of defiance to danger and risks that would grow in her with the growth of our love. No notice was taken of us. The eyes and thoughts of all were directed to the ship. From time to time Vanderdecken or Van Vogelaar would inspect her through the glass. Presently Antony Arents and Jans, the boatswain, joined them, and the four conversed as though the captain had called a council. " She is picking us up very fast," said I to Imogene, whilst we stood awhile looking at- the vessel. "I should not like to swear to her nationality ; but that she is an armed ship, whether French, or Dutch, or English, is as certain as that she has amazingly lively heels." "How white her sails are, and how hteh they rise !" exclaimed Imogene. " She leans more sharply than we." " Ay," said I, " she shows twice her number of cloths. Is it not astonishing," I continued, softening my voice, " that Vanderdecken, and his mates and men, should not guess that there is something very wrong with them, from the mere contrast of such beautifully cut and towering canvas as that ypnder with the scanty, storm-darkened rags of sails under which this groaning old hull is driven along ?' " Yes, at least to you and me, who have the faculty of appreciating contrasts. But think of them as deficient in all qualities but those which are necessary for the execution of the sentence. For their heedlessness is that of a blind man who remains insensible to the pointing of your finger to the object you speak to him about." " Would to God you and I were quit of it all," said I. " We must pray for help, and hope for it, too !" she answered, with a swift glance at me, that for a breathless moment carried the violet beauty and shining depths of her eyes fair to mine. An instant's meeting of our gaze only ! Yet I could see her heart in that rapid, fearless, trustful look, as the depth of the Heavens is reavealed by a flash of summer lightning. Suddenly Vanderdecken gave orders for the ensign to be hoisted. The boatswain entered the little house, and returned with the flag, which he bent on to the halliards rove at the mizzen-topmast head. The ' colours • mounted slowly to his mechanical I pulling, and they were worthy indeed of the dead-and-live hand that hoisted them ; being as ragged and attenuated with age as

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I any banner hung high in the dusty gloom |of a cathedral. ■ But the flag was distinguishable as the Hollander's ensign, as you saw when it crazily streamed .out its fabric, that was so thin in places, you thought you spied the sky through it. One should say it was a' flag seldom flown on board the Dutchman, to judge from the manner in which the crew cast their eyes up at it, never a one of them Smiling, indeed, though here and there under the death-pallor- there lay a sort of crumpling of the flesh, as of a grin. 'Twas a nag to drive thoughts of home deep into them, and now and again I would catch one muttering to another behind his hand, whilst the most of them coutinued to steadfast ly regard the ensign for many minutes after Jans had mastheaded it, as though they fancied home could not be far distant with that flag telling of it.

CHAPTER XXVII. THE CENTAUR FLIES FROM US. Now the Dutch flag had nob been flying twenty minutes' when, my sight, being keen, I thought I could perceive something resembling a colour at the fore-royal masthead of the ship. I asked Imogene if she saw it. She answered no. I said nothing, not being sure myself, and was unwilling to intrude upon the four men standing to windward by asking for tho telescope. On board our ship they had set the sprit-top-sail, and the forward part of tho dull, time-eaten, rugged old vessel resembled a Chinese kite. She was doing her best; but let her splutter as she would, 'twas for all the world like tho sailing of a beer-barrel with a mast steeped in the bunghole. And this, thought I, was the vessel that gave the slip to the frigate belonging to Sir George Ascue's squadron ! The wake she made was short, broad, and oily—a square, fat, glistening surface of about her own length—not greatly exceeding the smoothness she would leave a-woather if drifting dead to leeward under bare poles ; different indeed from that suggestion of comet-like speed which you find in the fleecy swirl of a line of foaming waters boiling out from the metalled run of a fleet cruiser, and rising and f ailing and fading into dim distance like a path of snow along a hilly land. On board yonder ship they would have perspective glasses of a power very different from the flat lenses in Vanderdecken's tubes ; and since by this time it- was certain they had us large in their telescopes, what would they be thinking of our huge oldfashioned tops, fitter for the bowmen and musqueteers of Ferdinand Magellan, and Drake than for the small armsmen of even the days of the Commonwealth, of the antique cut of our canvas and the wild and disordered appearance of its patches and colour submitted, of the grisly aspect of the wave-worn, storm-swept hull, of the peaked shape and narrowness of our stern, telling of times long vanishe , as do the covers of an old book or the arches in an apcicnt church ? Imogene and 1 continued our walk up and down, talkingof many things, chiefly of England, whereof I gave her as much news, down to the time of the sailing of the Saracen, as I carried in my memory, until, presently coming abreast of the group of four, still on the weather quarter, every man of whom, turn and turn about, had been working away with the telescope at the ship, Vanderdecken called me by name and stepped over to us with the glass in his hand. "Your sight is younger than ours, mynheer," said he, motioning towards Jans and the two mates. " What flag do you make yonder vessel to be flying at her foretop-gallant masthead ?" 1 took tho glass and pointed it, kneeling to rest it as before, and the instant the stranger came within the lenses I beheld Britannia's glorious blood-red St. George's Cross blowing out great white flag betwixt the fore-royal yard and the truck that rose high above. Pretending to require time to make sure, 1 lingered to gather if possible the character of the ship. From the cut of her sails, the saucy, admirable set of them, the bigness of the topsails, the hungry yearning for us I seemed to find in the 'bellying of the studding-sails she had thrown out, it would have been impossible for a nautical eye to mistake her for anything but a State ship, though of what rate 1 could not guess. There was a refraction that threw her up somewhat, and in the glass she looked to lie swelling after us in a bed of liquid boiling silver, with a tlrin void'of trembling blue between the whiteness and the sea-line. I rose and said, " The colour she shows is English."' Vanderdecken turned savagely towards the others and cried, " English !" A'-ents let fly an oath; Jans struck his thigh heavily with his open hand ; Van Vogelaar, scowling at me, cried, " Are you sure, sir ?" " I am sure of the flag," said I ; " but she may prove a Frenchman for all I know." Vandetdecketi clasped his arms tightly upon his breast and sank into thought, with the fire in his eyes levelled at the coming ship. '• See there, gentlemen !" I exclaimed. "A gun!" , Bright as the morning was, I had marked a rusty red spark wink in the bow of the vessel' like a Hash of sunshine from polished copper ; a little white ball blew away to leeward, expanding as it fled. An instant after, just such another cloudy puff swept into the jibs and drove out in a gleaming trail or two. Presently the reports reached our ears in two dull thuds, one after the other.

Vanderdecken stared aloft at his canvas, then over the side, and joined the others. My excitement was intense ; I could scarce contain myself. I knew there was a British squadron at the Cape, and 'twas possible that fellow there might be on a reconnoitering or cruising errand. " You are sure she is English ?" Imogene whispered.

"She is a man-of-war; she is flying our flag. I don't doubt she is English," I replied. The girl drew a long tremulous breath, and her arm touching mine—so close together we stood—l felt a shiver run through her.

"You are not alarmed, Imogene?" I exclaimed, giving her her Christian name for the first time, and finding a lover's sweetness and delieht in the mere uttering of it. She coloured very faintly and cast her gaze upon the deck. " What is going to happen?" she whispered. " Will they send you on board that shipkeeping me?" "No ! they'll not do that. If she bo an Englishman and has balls to feed her cannon with " I cried, raising my voice unconsciously.. "Hush!" she cried, "Von Vogelaar watches us." We were silent for a space, that the attention I had challenged should be again given to the ship. During tho pause I thought to myself, "But can her guns bo of use? How much hulling and wounding should go to the destruction of a vessel has been rendered imperishable by the Curse of Heaven? What injury could musket and . piste.!, could cutlass and handgrenades, deal men to whom Death has ceased to be, who have outlived'Tiuie and are owned by Eternity ?" Vanderdecken, who had' been taking short turns upon the deck with heated strides, stopped afresh to inspect the ship, and as he did so another flash broke from her weather- and the smoke \fent from her in a curl. The skipper looked at the others.

" She has the wind of us and sails three feet to our one. Let tho mainsail be hauled up and the topsail brought to the mast. If she be the enemy her flag denotes, her temper will not be sweetened by a long pursuit of which the issue is clear." Van Vogelaar, scowling venomously, seemed .to hang in the wind, on which Vanderdecken looked at him with an expression of face incredibly fierce and terrible. The posture of his giant figure, his half lifted hand, the slight forward inclination of his head, as if he would blast his man with the lightning of his eyes—it was like seeing some marvellous personification of human wrath ; and I whispered quickly into Imogene's ear: "That will be how he appeared when he defied his God !"

It was as if he could not speak for rage. And swiftly was he understood. In a breath Jans was rolling forward, calling to the men, Arents was hastening to his station on the quarter-deck, and Van Vogelaar was slinking to the foremost end of the poop. The crew, to the several cries that broke from the mates and boatswain, dropped from rail and ratline, where they had been standing staring at the pursuing craft, and in ghastly silence, without exhibition of concern or impatience, fell to hauling upon the clew-garnets and backing the yards on the main.

So weak was the ship's progress that the bringing of the canvas to the mast immediately stopped her way, and she lay as dead as a buoy upon the heave of the sea.; This done, the crew went to the weather side, whence, as they rightly supposed, they would best view tue approaching vessel. Jans held to the forecastle, Arents to the iquarter-deck, and the mate hung sullen in the shadows cast' by the mizzen shrouds upon the planks. My heart beat as quickly as a baby's. I could not imagine what was to happen. Would yonder man-of-war, supposing her British, take possession of the Braave ? —that is, could she? English powder, with earthquake power, has thrown up a mighty mountain of wonders ;butcould it, with its crimson glare, thunder down the Curse by and in which this ship continued to sail and these miserable men continued to live? I.shuddered at the impiety of the thought, yet what ending of this chase was to be conjectured if it were nob capture ? Vanderdecken, on the weather quarter, watched the ship in his trance-like fashion. How majestic, how unearthly, too, he looked against the blue beyond, his beard stirring and waving like smoke in a faintly moving atmosphere to the blowing of the wind ! He wore the aspect of a fallen god, with the fires of hell glittering in his eyes and the passions of the dammed surging dark from his soul to his face. Imogeno and I had insensibly gained the lee.quarter and our whispers were driven seawards Irom him by the breeze. "How will this end ?" I asked my sweet companion. "If there be potency in the Curse, this ship cannot be captured." She answered : "I cannot guess ; I have not known such a thing as this to happen before."

" Suppose they send a prize crew on board—the sentence will not permit of her navigation beyond Agulhas—there is not a hawser in all the world stout enough to tow this ship round the Cape. As it is, is not yonder vessel doomed by her chasing us, by her resolution to Speak us ?"

There was a deep silence fore and aft. No human voice brokothe silence. You heard but the purringof the surges frothing against our sides, the flap of a sail to the regular roll of the fabric, a groan from the heart of her, the soft shock ot the sudden hit of a billow. Nothing more. The silence of the immeasurable deep grew into a distinct sense undisturbed by the gentle universal hissing that went up out of it. The sails of the oncoming ship shone to the gushing of tho sunlight like radiant, leaning columns of a porphyritic tincture breaking into moonlike alabaster with the escape of the shadows to the sunward stare of the cloths. Bland as the fairy glory of the full moon floating in a sea of .ethereal indigo was the shining of those lustrous bosoms, each course and topsail tremulous with the play of the golden fringe of reefpoints, and delicate beyond language were the pencilled shadowings at the foot ot the rot nded cloths. Like cloud upon cloud those sails soared to the dainty little royals, above the foremost of which their blew Britannia's glorious flag, the blood-red cross of St. George upon a field white as the foam that boiled to as high as the hawse pipes with the churning of the shearing cut-water storming like a meteor througli the blue. Oh, she was English ! you felt the blood of her country hot in her with the sight of her flag, that was like a crown upon an hereditary brow, making her queen of the dominion of the sea, roll where it would '

She approached us like a roll of smoke, and the wash of the froth along her black and glossy bends threw out the mouths of her single tier of cannon. She was apparently a thirty-eight-gun ship, and as she drew up, with a luffing helm that brought the after-yardarms stealing out past the silky swells of the sails on the fore, you spied the glitter and flash of the goldcoloured figurehead, a lion, with its paw upon Britannia's shield. When she was within a mile of us she hauled down her studding-sail, clewed up her royals and mizzen topgallant sail, and drove quietly long upon our weather-quarter, still heeling as though she would have us note how lustrous was the copper, whose brightness rose to the water-line, and what finish that ruddy sheathing, colouring the snow of the blue water leaping along it with a streaking as of purple sunshine, gave to her charms. All this while, the master, mates, and crew of the Death Ship were as mute as though they lay in their coffins. Vanderdecken leaned upon his hand on the rail above the quarter-gallery, and the motion which the heave of the ship gave to his giant form by the sweeping of it up and down the heavens at the horizon emphasised his own absolute motionless. Nevertheless, his gaze was rooted in the ship, and the brightening of the angry sparkle in his eyes to the nearing of the man-of-war was a never-to-be-forgotten sight. " How is this going to end ?" I whispered to Imogene. "Is it possible that they are still unable to guess the character of our vessel ?"

The frigate had drawn close enough to enable us to make out the glint of buttons and epaulets on the quarter deck, the uniform of marines on the forecastle, and the heads of seamen standing by the braces or at the guns along the decks. She now hauled up her mainsail but without backing her topsail, lulled so as to shake the way out of her, giving us, as she did so, an oblique view of her stern very richly ornamented, the glass of the windows flashing, and the blue swell brimming to her name in large characters, "Centaur." " Ship ahoy came thundering down through the trumpet'at the mouth of a tall, powerfully-built man erect on the rail close against the mizzen rigging. " What ship is that?"

Vanderdecken made no answer. The wind blew in a moaning gust over the bulwark, and there was the sound of a little jar and shock as the old fabric leaned wearily on the swell, but not a whisper fell from the men. Meanwhile it had grown evident to me that our ship was greatly puzzling the people of the frigate. It looked, indeed, as if the men had left their stations to crowd to the side, for the line of the bulwarks was blackened with heads. A group of officers stood on the quarter-deck, and I could see them pointing at our masts as though calling one another's attention to the Bniave's great barricaded tops, to her sprit-topmast, the cub and character of her rigging, and to the many signs that would convert her into a wonder, if not a terror, in the eyes of sailors. " Ship ahoy now came down again, with an edge of anger in the hurricane note. " What ship is that?" At this second cry Vanderdecken broke into life. He turned his face forward. "Bring me my trumpet!" he exclaimed in a voice whose rich, organ-like roll must have been plainly heard on board the frigate, whether his Dutch was understood or not. The ancient tube I had seen in his cabin was put. in his hand. He stepped to the rail, and placing the trumpet to his mouth cried, "The Braave." " Where are you from ?" " Batavia !" " Where bound ?" " Amsterdam

There was another pause. The line of heads throbbed with visible agitation along the sides, and I saw one man of the group on the quarter-deck go up to the captain, who was speaking our ship, touch his cap, and say something. But the other imperiously waved him off with a flourish of his trumpet, which he instantly after applied to his lips, and shouted out, " Haul down your flag and I will send a boat."

Vanderdecken looked towards me. What does he say ?" he exclaimed.

I told him. He called to Van Vogelaar, who promptly enough came to the halliards and lowered the flag to the deck. I watched the descent of that crazy, attenuated, ragged symbol. To my mind it was as affrighting in its suggestions of unholy survival as the whole appearance of the vessel or the countenance and mechanical manners of the most corpse-like man of the crew of her. Scarce was the ensign hauled down when there came to our ears the silver, cheerful singing of a boatswain's pipe ; the maintopsail was laid aback, and the frigate's length showed out as she fell slightly off from the luff that had held her canvas trembling in the wind. We were too far asunder for the nice discernment of faces with the naked eye, but methought since there seemed no lack of telescopes aboard the frigate, enough should have been made out of the line of deadly faces which looked over our bulwark rail, to resolve us to the satisfaction of that British crew.

Again was heard the silver chirping of the boatswain's whistle; a pinnace was lowered, into which tumbled a number of armed seamen, and the blades of eight oars flashed like gold as they rose feathering from the first spontaneous dip. " They are coming !" cried Imogene in a faint voice..

. <" Let us keep where we are," I exclaimed. " Vanderdecken does not heed us. If we move his thoughts will fly to you, and he may give me trouble. Dear girl, keep a stout heart. They will be sure to carry us to the shipproud to rescue you, at least; then, what follows must —you will be safe I"

She put her hand under my arm. Tall as were the bulwarks of the Braave, there was swell enough so to roll the ship as to enable me with every windward sway to see clear to the water where the boat was pulling. With beating hearts we watched. On a sudden the oars ceased to rise and fall; the seamen hung upon them, all to a man staring at our snip with heads twisted as if they would wring their necks; then, as if impelled by one mind, they let fall their oars to stop the boat's way, all of them gazing with straining eyeballs. The officer who steered stood erect, peering at us under his hand. The ship, God knows, was plain to their view now— age and rottenness of her timbers, her patchwork sails, the sickliness of such ghastly and dismal hue as her sides discovered, theancientness of her guns and swivels ; above all the looks of the crew watching the boat's approachan array of figures more shocking than were they truly dead, newly unfrocked of their winding sheets and propped up against the rail to horribly counterfeit living seamen.

" Why have they ceased rowing ?" cried Imogene, in a voice of bitter distress, and withdrawing her hand from my arm to press it upon her heart.

As she spoke a sudden commotion was perceptible among the men in the boat; the officer shrilly crying out some order, flung himself, as one in a frenzy, in the sternsheets ; the larboard oars sparkled, and the desperate strokes of the men made the foam fly in smoke, whilst the starboard hands furiously backed-water to get the boat's head round swiftly, and before you could have counted ten she was being pulled, in a smother of froth, back to the frigate. I was about to leap to the side and shout to them, but at the instant Vanderdecken turned and looked at me. Then it flashed across my mind, " If I hail the boat, he and Van Vogelaar, all of them, may imagine I design to inform the frigate of the treasure !" —and the apprehension of what might follow such a suspicion held my feet glued to the deck.

" They have guessed what this ship is !" said Imogene, in a voice full of tears. I could not speak for the crushing disappointment that caused the heart in me to weigh down, heavy as lead. I had made sure of the officer stepping on board, and of his delivering the girl and me from this accursed ship on hearing my story, and acting as a British naval officer should when his duty as a sailor, or his chivalry as a man, is challenged ; in conformity with that noble saying of one of our most valiant admirals, who, on being asked whither he intended to carry his ship —''To Hell !" he answered, " if duty commands !" Yet one hope lingered, though faintly indeed ; the captain of the frigate had imperiously commanded the boat to be manned, as I gathered by his manner of waving away the officer who had addressed him in a remonstrant manner; would lie sutler the return of the boat's crew until they had obeyed his orders ? I watched. Headlong went the boat, smoking through the billows which arched down upon her from the windward, and her oars sparkled like sheet lightning with the panic-terror that plied them ; the excitement in the ship was visible enough, discipline had given way to superstitious fear. I could see the captain flourishing his arm wit threatening gestures, lieutenants and midshipmen running here and there, but to no purpose. The whole ship's company, about three hundred sailors and marines as I supposed, knew what ship we were, and the very frigate herself as she rolled without way looked like some startled beast mad for flight, the foam draining from her bows to the slow pitching, as a terrified steed champs his bit into froth, and shudder after shudder going up out of her heart of oak into her sails, as you would have said to watch the tremble, and filling, and backing of them to the wind. [To be continued.]